Monthly Archives: October 2013

Tepco has made a PROFIT of 110 billion yen over the last six months. This is while they are cutting costs at Fukushima Daiichi by reducing pay, failing to hire new workers, which has led to a shortage of workers which they have already admitted has resulted in further radioactive contamination of the environment. Looks like Tepco execs have earned a bonus!

Tepco is increasing the purchases of fracked natural gas from the US. Fracking is devastating areas across the US, especially in Pennsylvania and New York, by polluting water supplies with radioactive isotopes and other toxic materials. According to this article by Chris Busby, fracking not only releases “technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material” like uranium-238, radon-222, radon-226, bismuth-214, lead-210, and polonium-210, but frackers are using shaped charges made out of depleted uranium to get the gas out.

So these areas suffer radioactive contamination of their water supplies. But it’s all about achieving energy independence, right? No, they are shipping the gas to Tepco in Japan. Tepco irradiates us with Fukushima, and then turns around and irradiates us with fracking. And making profits out of it.

The US is being exploited for its natural resources like any third world colonial country, with no regard for its citizens whatsoever. The cretins in the White House and on Capitol Hill are all for this.

1. Polar bears, seals and walruses along the Alaska coastline are suffering from fur loss and open sores…
2. There is an epidemic of sea lion deaths along the California coastline…
3. Along the Pacific coast of Canada and the Alaska coastline, the population of sockeye salmon is at a historic low. Many are blaming Fukushima.
4. Something is causing fish all along the west coast of Canada to bleed from their gills, bellies and eyeballs.
5. A vast field of radioactive debris from Fukushima that is approximately the size of California has crossed the Pacific Ocean and is starting to collide with the west coast.

Et cetera et cetera. Caldicott is behind the curve and waffling, as usual.

What about the plutonium from the Unit 4 spent fuel pool. The pool had its walls break, went dry, and the fuel burned in 2011. Hatrick Penry has an excellent article about this issue from the NRC transcripts. Substantially the same story had been reported in the media at that time. From the Fukushima Timeline:

Date: March 14 Monday
Time: 3/14-10:22AM Event: Unit 4 fire Event: Dangerous radiation levels. Yukio Edano, the chief cabinet secretary, says: “As of 10.22am, we are talking about radiation levels that can damage human health.” “The further you can get away from the plant, the safer it is.” Mr Edano said that the No. 4 reactor at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex was currently on fire

Time: 11:39 02:39 NHK reports that the fire at the No. 4 reactor will carry the radiation up to 18 miles away. Anyone within 18 miles of the plant should brush themselves down thoroughly – hair, clothes, skin – before going inside. Once inside, wash thoroughly. Shut the windows and turn off air conditioning

Date: March 15, 2011 Tuesday
Time: 3/15-5:40 to 6:00 AM Event: Unit 4 Explosion
a loud explosion was heard from within the power station. Afterwards, it was confirmed that the 4th floor rooftop area of the Unit 4 Nuclear Reactor Building had sustained damage. ” link The event is not caught on camera. The black roof surface is in place, but will be blown off by March 17. Unit 4 isn’t even operating, it is only storing “warm” fuel in its storage pool, but there is no power for cooling.

time 3/15-5:40AM event: Explosion Unit 4 blows out walls
Japan Nuclear Watch, Wed. am JST: New Fire and Explosion at Unit 4 Fuel Pond By: Scarecrow Tuesday March 15, 2011 2:25 pm About 5:40 a.m. Wednesday morning, their time, officials reported a fire and explosion that blew a hole about 8 meters wide in the walls of the Unit 4 building. The location corresponds to the 4th floor area where the spent fuel storage pools are located. There is reportedly a hole in the building roof, as a result of yesterday’s explosion and fire, and authorities considered using helicopters to dump or inject water from the roof. However the hole is apparently not near enough to the fuel rod pools to make an aerial drop effective.

Time: 3/15-6:12AM Event: Unit 4 ezplosion shows up on seismometer
the panel studied a seismometer at the plant and found only one explosion tremor recorded at 6:12 a.m. that day. Based on analysis of the tremor, the panel concluded that the explosion occurred at the No. 4 reactor.

Date: 3/15/2011 Time 12:12J 03:12U To recap, here is the latest AFP update: Edano later said there was also an explosion which started a fire at the number-four reactor. Although the number-four reactor was shut for maintenance when the quake and tsunami struck last Friday, “spent nuclear fuel in the reactor heated up, creating hydrogen and triggered a hydrogen explosion”. He said radioactive substances were leaked along with the hydrogen.

22.49U New reports from Sky saying that the “new” fire at reactor 4 took hold because the first fire (and explosion) from Tuesday morning local time was never properly extinguished. AP reports: Utility says new fire at Japan nuclear reactor erupted because first one was not extinguished.

21.40U Japan’s nuclear safety committee say radiation levels of 400 millisieverts an hour had been recorded near Fukushima’s No.4 reactor earlier today. Exposure to over 100 millisieverts a year is a level which can lead to cancer. The workers who have stayed behind to cool the reactors are being hailed as heroes. (10 sieverts of radiation is now common at the plant, 25 times the level in March 2011.)

Date: March 16 Wednesday
The National Police Agency is considering using a special water cannon truck held by the Metropolitan Police Department to cool a pool storing spent fuel rods at the troubled No. 4 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, police sources said Wednesday. The operation could start as early as Wednesday night, they said.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released data showing that on Tuesday and Wednesday, the temperature in pond 4 was 84C – way above normal, and about 25C higher than the equivalent ponds in buildings 5 and 6. What made the situation concerning the fuel pond in building 4 seem particularly serious was Wednesday’s statement from Tepco saying: “The possibility of re-criticality is not zero”. This meant that in the company’s view, it was possible that enough fissile uranium was present in the cooling pond in enough density to form a critical mass

Event: Japan and US nuclear agencies believe Unit 4 pool may be dry: Japan Unit-4 Pool’s Heat Exceeded Three-Times Normal, IAEA Says By Jonathan Tirone – Mar 18, 2011 2:40 AM PT Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said yesterday there is a possibility there’s no water at the cooling pool. If exposed to air, the fuel rods could decay, catch fire and spew radioactive materials into the air. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko said in Congressional testimony March 16 that unit had no water in its cooling pool, which sits in a side chamber above the reactor’s core. A hydrogen explosion inside the core’s containment chamber may have drained the pool, which is supposed to keep radiation in check by covering the rods with 15 meters of water.

Date: April 25, 2011 Monday

Something Odd Is Happening at Reactor Number 4
NHK reports:
The operator of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is
carefully monitoring the situation at the Number 4 spent fuel pool,
where the water temperature is rising despite increased injections of
cooling water.

Tokyo Electric Power Company, or TEPCO, says it will inject 210 tons
of water into the pool on Monday, after finding on Sunday evening that
the temperature in the pool had risen to 81 degrees Celsius.

On Friday, TEPCO found that the pool’s temperature had reached 91
degrees, so it began injecting 2 to 3 times the amount of water.

The Number 4 spent fuel pool stores 1,535 fuel rods, the most at the
nuclear complex.

Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen notes that the spent fuel rods in
reactor number 4 have no water, and the rods are exposed:

I could go on, but the point is that the fuel rods burned, and large amounts of the contents of Unit 4 SFP went into the atmosphere. The heat would have turned large amounts of the fuel that is left into goop which leaked out onto the reactor building floor. This may have burned through the floor into the ground, or stayed on the floor, and the groundwater which is rising to the surface is mixing with it and causing radioactive runoff into the ocean.

The whole issue of removing fuel rods from #4 is a farce. Anything still left in there is goop. Don’t believe the photos and videos of this pool, they could have come from any nuclear plant.

The radiation readings over a large part of the US, especially the West, have been high lately. This is a result of the recent incident or continuing incidents at Fukushima Daiichi. I took a screenshot of netc.com at 2:30 this afternoon. And I selected a map of the dynamic tropopause for about this same time. The dynamic tropopause gives a good idea of the air masses over the US. This seemed to be the best fit of all maps to the radiation situation.

The purple-shaded areas on the second graphic show an air mass that originated in the Arctic. It is over the Great Lakes and Northeast. The wind barbs indicate the wind direction at the average altitude of 7,000-10,000 feet. The direction of the barbs show you where the wind is coming from. For instance, over Tennessee, the wind is from the west. Following the barbs, you can see the Arctic air mass has winds blowing from the far north. The rest of the country has winds originating from the Pacific.

The swirl over southern Nevada is low pressure, which is just swirling the contaminated air around. You can see that the high radiation readings on the seacoast of Virginia and North Carolina are now to the south of the boundary of the Arctic air mass. The jet stream roughly follows this boundary.

By Monday morning, Oct. 28, the Arctic air will move into the Rockies and northern plains, hopefully providing relief to these areas. But the clean areas now, like Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania look like they will be in the soup. But, since the air takes longer to get into these areas, levels of short-half life radionuclides like I-131 will have dropped by then, so it may not be as bad as what is going on in the West. The west coast itself doesn’t look like it will have much relief.

This Japanese blog post states that, based on Tepco press releases, the amount of groundwater at the plant is now accumulating at a rate of 700 tons per day, which is 4 times the amount accumulated earlier. This has to do with the soil barrier they built. This will have to go into tanks or the ocean, or else groundwater levels will seep up into the surface.

And the “Blog of Waiting Chan” asserts from an embedded video that the recent gigantic increases in contamination of underground water, which have been attributed to leaks from the tanks, have actually been due to Tepco clearing debris from Units 1 and 3. This occurred August 12 through Aug. 19. Fukushima Diary confirms that the dust alarms from Unit 3 were going off at this time. The dust alarm was eventually turned off. Also radiation spikes occurred in Fukushima prefecture at this time, and it appears that a criticality occurred. Check out this nuckelchen video from Aug. 20.

So the surges in contamination would have been from heavy rainfalls swamping the piles of debris, wherever they put them, and releasing large amounts of cesium, strontium and tritium. And it is possible that Tepco caused the August criticality. Two typhoons are on the way to Fukushima Daiichi.

New testing done by Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering found Fukushima cesium in US Pacific sea weed. The samples were standardized against a known amount of cesium 137 and cobalt 60. The finding of cesium 134 would indicate this is at least partially from the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

I have not been able to get more information as to when the sample was collected and tested, only that this is a “new” test.

The significant thing about this measurement is that the amount of cesium-134 is 92% of the amount of cesium-137. This corresponds approximately to the ratio of 134 to 137 that was found in March 2011. Values of samples collected today contaminated with March 2011 fallout only would indicate 134 levels to be less than half of 137. Therefore this is new fallout.

Caesium-134 has a half-life of 2.0652 years. It is produced both directly (at a very small yield because 134Xe is stable) as a fission product and via neutron capture from nonradioactive Cs-133 (neutron capture cross section 29 barns), which is a common fission product. Caesium 134 is not produced via beta decay of other fission product nuclides of mass 134 since beta decay stops at stable 134Xe. It is also not produced by nuclear weapons because 133Cs is created by beta decay of original fission products only long after the nuclear explosion is over. (Wikipedia)

This would indicate that the seaweed sample has undergone atmospheric contamination from a recently emitted plume, that originated as a result of fission or a criticality.

The presence of cobalt-60 implies a criticality has occurred:

Cobalt-60, 60Co, is a synthetic radioactive isotope of cobalt with a half-life of 5.27 years. It is produced artificially by neutron activation of the isotope 59Co. (Wikipedia)

Cobalt-60 is an activation product which is produced from activation of cobalt-59 by free neutrons.

Again, I do not know the provenance of this result, so take this for what it is worth.

… three teachers had been recently diagnosed with stage 1 thyroid cancer, another three had thyroid problems, and seven suffered migraines. The letter also cited incidents of hair loss, rashes and bladder cancer.

“These teachers believe their health has been adversely affected as a result of working in our particular buildings at Malibu high school,” Katy Lapajne, a language arts teacher, wrote in the letter.

This school had soil contaminated by PCB’s removed in 2010. Testing for mold was conducted, and the school district declared “Tests show Malibu High mold not hazardous.” But the articles states that these a preliminary tests, and only some classrooms were tested for mold. And actually, the results showed the mold results “are similar to levels found outdoors with no unusual findings.” That begs the question of how high the mold levels are outdoors.

A day earlier, Sandra Lyon, the superintendent of the Santa Monica-Malibu unified school district, addressed the auditorium audience while media trucks waited outside. “You have heard serious and alarming allegations. These reports have mushroomed in our community.”

The school had begun testing for air and soil contamination last month, said Lyon. She apologised for not communicating that before the teachers’ letter forced the issue into the open, but said there was no evidence students were at risk. “We know they are safe, just as much as you know that your house is safe.”

Few seemed reassured. Questions rained down. Would inspectors test for radioactivity? Where was the mould? Was the water safe? Did inspectors have PhDs? How advanced were the cancer cases?

Several parents cited having children with cancer and other ailments, prompting Lucas, the mother of two students, to ask how many suffered migraines. The show of hands seemed to convince many of an epidemic.

Well, as documented here and at other sites, iodine-131 has been emitted from Fukushima Daiichi since March 2011, and it is continuing today. Hair loss and rashes are also a result of beta emitters like I-131.

Malibu High School is located one block from the Pacific Ocean.

People living within 20 kilometers of the coast are subject to breathing in sea spray. As related in a previous post,

Sea-to-land transfer has been observed and reported near the British Nuclear Fuels plc Sellafield Works, Cumbria, England, the Dounreay Nuclear Power Development Establishment, Caithness, Scotland and the reprocessing works at Cap de la Hague, Normandy, France. In Cumbria, where the effect has been most fully investigated, plutonium, americium and radiocaesium discharged to the Irish Sea from Sellafield have been observed many kilometres inland.

So plutonium, americium, and yes, cesium are found in sea spray which migrate 20 kilometers inland. This is bad news for people who live near the Pacific coast.

Of course, radioactive buckyballs are a problem too. These are geodesic dome-like configurations of uranium that have been produced at the plant, and travel on the surface of the ocean.

We have recently seen starfish turning to goo off the Atlantic coast of the US, the Pacific coast of Canada, and the Kamachatka Pacific coast of Russia. Also sea lions, sea urchins, sea snails, sockeye salmon, humpback whales, abalone, mussels, and coral reefs have all been affected. The sardine industry off Canada has completely collapsed. Not a single sardine was caught.

Now humans appear to be affected by the radioactive Pacific.

Also, I wanted to note that new data from Fukushima prefecture sludge shows that the amount of cesium has doubled in six months.

It is the underground water pollution just a record high yesterday, but it has detected a higher number… Radioactivity was detected for the first time from the groundwater in the 8th September of this year, radioactivity of 4200 Bq per liter of degree only was not detected at that time. When compared with the 260 000 becquerels of this time, there is a difference even 61 times indeed, it could be said to be a very dramatic surge… A number as high as competitive contaminated water it is in the tank, and also the possibility that nuclear fuel melted in the basement of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant reacts with groundwater, has created a new contaminated water a large amount of high is. I think that steam is occurring even now in Unit 3 is the evidence, and he is like underground water vein deep in Unit 3.

This Japanese blogger is probably right, Unit 3 is at it again, causing a dramatic increase in amounts of tritium, strontium, and other beta radionuclides in the groundwater. This would be due to a re-criticality. But it is possible that massive leaks have erupted in the tanks, which would also explain these measurements, and which would also be bad news, but would not have resulted in the atmospheric contamination aspect of a criticality.

Then it was discovered that 1,400 Bq/m3 of cesium was found in the ocean, one kilometer from the port. Obviously the silt fence (which gets damaged every time there is a storm) did next to nothing in preventing cesium from getting out of the port.

After all, such as the cause of abnormality of Fukuichi camera that occurred on October 7, was unknown, but from the fact that things like that exposure of six workers immediately after that also is occurring, and announced officially really Just do not, issue critical or would not than had occurred seven days before and after October? Including Tokyo, has been observed spike in radiation dose in eastern Japan in early October… Because there is a track record of said large lie many times in the past, TEPCO is no wonder even if you did not hide any abnormal situation really.

Six workers were contaminated with radioactive water, in doses of up to one sievert. The spikes in atmospheric radiation observed on Oct. 7 and 8, the cesium in the port and ocean, and the tritium underground. Something is abnormal.

Valvane @ Valvane 7h
Is herpes in the corners of the mouth from Tuesday around. Though it is the amount of work and content as usual Saturday and Sunday …, it is easy to fatigue or more for some reason, headache was also. After the story of the human part, the person was also similar. Place of business this Saturday and Sunday, Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture. @ Etosha0824

There are two separate things going on. The tritium underground, and the cesium in the sea. They are different. The tritium can be explained by underground corium. The cesium is more likely from an aboveground source. Spent fuel pool #2 comes to mind, since the cesium was detected near the seawater intake of #2.

The webcam has showed smoke, spiderwebs and other phenomena. This probably started on Oct. 5 or 6.

I want to stress that this as not as obvious as the criticalities that occurred in May-June and July-August. So hopefully, any plumes released will not be as contaminated as in those time periods. But it is still very early in this event. The plume would be showing up on the west coast in a couple days to a few days.

Prof. Satoshi Mori has discussed the finding that amounts of radioactive silver (Ag-110m) have exceeded those of radioactive cesium in squid, octopus and crab caught off Fukushima prefecture.

This is significant because the half-life of Ag-110m is 250 days. The amounts of it should have dropped by 80% since the initial catastrophe in March 2011, yet it is still found in excess of cesium, which in the case of the Cs-134 isotope would have dropped by 50%, and Cs-137, which would have dropped just a tiny bit in that time frame.

Ag-110m is an activation product, which means it is produced by neutron irradiation of control rod materials, including nonradioactive silver. This implies that fission and criticalities are still going on, which create free neutrons, leading to neutron activation of these materials.

Radioactive silver levels were found to exceed cesium levels in 62% of marine products in November 2012. The latest tests appear to have been performed in April 2013, and there should have been substantial decay of this isotope since then. But the levels are still high.

This silver was found in the midgut gland of these sea creatures. This gland functions as sort of a combination liver and pancreas. Silver concentrates in the human liver. Nanoparticles of silver have been determined to induce the production of interleukin-8 in the liver, which is inflammatory and indicative of an autoimmune reaction.

But Ag-110m decays into the extremely toxic metal cadmium. This was the agent that caused an outbreak of Itai-itai disease in Japan from 1912-1946. Cadmium accumulates in the liver and especially the kidneys. Symptoms and risks of cadmium poisoning include:

…tracheo-bronchitis, pneumonitis, and pulmonary edema. Symptoms of inflammation may start hours after the exposure and include cough, dryness and irritation of the nose and throat, headache, dizziness, weakness, fever, chills, and chest pain.

Inhaling cadmium-laden dust quickly leads to respiratory tract and kidney problems which can be fatal (often from renal failure). Ingestion of any significant amount of cadmium causes immediate poisoning and damage to the liver and the kidneys. Compounds containing cadmium are also carcinogenic.[10]

The bones become soft (osteomalacia), lose bone mineral density (osteoporosis) and become weaker. This causes the pain in the joints and the back, and also increases the risk of fractures. In extreme cases of cadmium poisoning, mere body weight causes a fracture.

The kidneys lose their function to remove acids from the blood in proximal renal tubular dysfunction. The kidney damage inflicted by cadmium poisoning is irreversible. The proximal renal tubular dysfunction creates low phosphate levels in the blood (hypophosphatemia), causing muscle weakness and sometimes coma. The dysfunction also causes gout, a form of arthritis due to the accumulation of uric acid crystals in the joints because of high acidity of the blood (hyperuricemia). Another side effect is increased levels of chloride in the blood (hyperchloremia). The kidneys can also shrink up to 30%. (Wikipedia)

According to a medical review article, diabetics are susceptible to cadmium-induced renal tubular damage. Women are more at risk than men for cadmium health effects, and people with low iron stores are more susceptible. Decreases in androgen levels and pathological testicular changes were found in rats. Zinc deficiency caused fetal malformations in rats exposed to cadmium.

So the risk from eating Pacific seafood does not necessarily fade away when the isotopes decay. They may turn into something else that is toxic.

The FDA has banned the importation of seafood from 14 Japanese prefectures. But the initial ocean plume from 2011 is thousands of miles from Japan already, and this ban actually does little to remove the poisoning threat from Pacific seafood from American tables.

I was hoping to get to this earlier today, but I have been enduring a truly hideous flare-up, with neuropathic pain. Pain and fatigue have been getting worse every day for two weeks now. This is different… previously symptoms would hit me like a ton of bricks, and then slowly ebb away. Now they are slowly increasing, day by day.

Bruno Chareyron is a nuclear physicist and the head of CRIIRAD. The CRIIRAD laboratory is a French NGO which specializes in the analysis of radioactivity in the environment. It was in reference to the post “Radiation plume after Japanese earthquake. Iodine-131 cloud reached France.” Mr. Chareyron claimed that the Montelimar graph indicated no iodine activity, and that the beta nuclides detected were from natural radon, as was explained in the text. He also said that the Avignon graph, which was clearly labeled to indicate a detection of iodine-131, was actually a measurement gamma emissions in the range of 320 to 400 keV. This range includes iodine-131, as well as the radon-222 daughters, lead-214 and bismuth-214. The variations were due to increases in the current of the Rhone river.

Mr. Chareyron claimed that this was misunderstanding from translating French into English. I pointed out that it was misleading to label a radioisotope measuremnt as iodine-131, when it was actually lead-214 and bismuth-214. He then asked me to say that CRIIRAD says that these changes were due to natural activity, and not to Fukushima. I then published this as an update. Then I commented that, in my opinion, they could not tell whether it was from Fukushima or not, and it certainly looked like CRIIRAD claimed it was I-131. Even if the increase was due to radon daughters, “Radon-222 is a member of the radioactive decay chain of uranium-238“. And corium is mostly uranium-238. Could it not be that the corium itself is being emitted from the Fukushima plant?

However, Mr. Chareyron retorted that CRIIRAD unequivocally demands that I remove my comment because it is introducing doubts as to the graphs indicating anything but variations in natural radioactivity. This I will not do. I won’t do this because this is MY OPINION. And it is an informed opinion, which also includes Japanese sludge measurements, and health reports from people. All anyone has to do is look in this blog, over time, at iodine-131 in Japanese sludge, and how it correlates to the measurements in Rhone river water.

But, since the graphs themselves are imported from CRIIRAD, I WILL remove all these graphs from this blog if I am specifically asked to do so.

So, once again.

1. CRIIRAD claims that the I-131 measurement is actually a measurement of a range of isotopes, including I-131, Pb-214, and Bi-214.

2. CRIIRAD claims that the iodine detection was actually of natural radioisotopes such as Pb-214 and Bi-214.

3. CRIIRAD unequivocally claims that this variation is NOT from Fukushima.

I never said that CRIIRAD claimed anything, except that the graphs indicated I-131. This is because they said “Iode 131”. I know that the post has been retweeted and reblogged, maybe some people said something else. I am not responsible for what other people post on the internet.